Translating social friendship: Catholic educational discourses across Indonesian schools

Catholic schools operate within a shared ecclesial tradition while expressing their educational identity through different institutional charisms and socio-cultural contexts. This study examines how Catholic schools in Indonesia translate the ideal of social friendship into publicly accessible institutional educational discourse. Using comparative qualitative discourse analysis, the study examines materials produced by six Catholic schools between 2020 and 2026, focusing on fraternity, encounter, solidarity, human dignity, and the common good. The findings show that social friendship is translated rather than simply transmitted, appearing through explicit, conceptual, and charismatic routes. Institutional charisms function as interpretive repertoires through which shared Catholic social concerns are given distinctive educational meanings, while local contexts accentuate particular relational emphases. The study further shows that social friendship extends beyond charitable service to encompass encounter, dignity, solidarity, reciprocity, justice, and common-good responsibility. It proposes the concept of institutional educational vernaculars to describe how Catholic schools render shared normative ideals intelligible through distinctive institutional languages and relational configurations.